NFC, AFC Championships Score Audience Superlatives For Fox, CBS

Fox earned a 28.5 fast-national rating and 55.9 million viewers for the Seahawks’ defeat of the 49ers in the NFC Championship yesterday. The rating is the best for a non-OT NFC title game since Packers-Panthers drew a 30.1 rating in ’97, while the viewership is the best for a non-OT NFC title game since 49ers-Cowboys drew 56.8 million viewers in ’95.

CBS finished with a 28.1 rating and 51.3 million viewers for the Broncos-Patriots AFC Championship. Those figures mark the second-best AFC title game rating in 17 years (dating back to a 28.5 for Patriots-Jaguars in ’97) and second-best AFC title game viewership in 32 years (dating back to 51.6 million viewers for Bengals-Chargers in ’82) (THE DAILY).